


The First Hiatus (1883-1886)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [38]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Abandonment, Angst, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Hiatus, Hopeful Ending, Johnlock - Freeform, London, Lumberjack hat, M/M, Pining Dean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 13:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10663272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Three empty years in which Doctor John Watson is minus one scruffy detective friend – and he does something that he may (will) come to at least initially regret.





	The First Hiatus (1883-1886)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



**1883**

Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. 

It was true. The more I thought about my years with Holmes – I was shocked when I realized that we had lived together for some seven years – the more I realized just how much I truly missed him. And now the man was gone, possibly never to return. 

It was not just the cases that we had undertaken together, but merely the presence of the beautiful, scruffy little fellow in his fireside chair, the barley-sugar pipe, the atrocious violin playing, the 'angel sword' that he sometimes took down and cleaned (if only because the maids would not touch it), even the pistol-shooting indoors – I felt like the abandoned wife in one of those terrible melodramas that were being shown across London, and I did not like it one little bit. 

Holmes' things had been delivered to Baker Street the day before my arrival, and had been fully unpacked. Evidently he had left in something of a hurry – some of his personal effects and most of his clothes had been left behind, along with all of his paperwork. I filed the latter neatly into envelopes, and tried not to make it look as if I was planning for his return, even if I was. The thing that nearly broke me at that time was incredibly stupid; down the back of the hat-stand, I found that stupid lumberjack hat with the floppy ears that he so often wore at home (almost as ridiculous as the deer-stalker that the “Strand” had portrayed him wearing; seriously, did they think he hunted stags rather than criminals?). That woollen hat ended up under my pillow, and every day I hid it in my bedside table so that the maids would not see it. It was, I felt, my last contact with him.

Lord, but I was so pathetic!

Holmes' birthday in September was awful. It fell on a Tuesday that year, and I had toyed with the idea of taking the day off work, but decided on reflection that the health problems of central-north London might keep my mind off of my troubles. It may have been the lesser of two evils, but at every pause in the day I found myself thinking of my friend, and wondering how he was getting on, or indeed if he was well. I cannot describe my emotions, or what remained of them, when I arrived home to a telegram from Miss Anna Holmes – Mrs. Thompson now, upon her recent marriage – stating that she had enjoyed reading about our Musgrave adventure, that she apologized for not being able to communicate with me before, and above all that my friend was 'all right'. The relief that that one simple telegram brought to me was indescribable.

At the time of my dear friend's disappearance, I had been working on writing up our adventure concerning The Resident Patient (the small but interesting affair involving Gaylord Holmes). I had forgotten about it completely until, some months along, the “Strand” magazine asked about its progress. This put me in a somewhat difficult position; I was reluctant at the time to provide the public with details of that case, especially as I feared it might cause Holmes' family to break off all communication with me. I was eventually prompted to continue writing by Mrs. Thompson, who in what had now become her quarterly telegrams asked one time as to whether I was planning to write more. I wrote back with my qualms about the next story in line – I was sure, knowing how families worked, that she knew all about her brother Gaylord's role in that matter – and she responded by encouraging me to go on, which I did. The positive reception I again received meant that I began to entertain serious thoughts about writing as an additional source of income.

**1884**

My thirty-second birthday passed in January, still with no sign of my friend. From something that Mrs. Thompson had said, I wondered if he had gone to the United States, though I could think of nothing that would cause him to move halfway around the world. I may or may not have asked Mrs. Harvelle for an additional plateful of bacon that morning, done extra crispy. Certain it was that she knew why but, angel that she was, she said nothing.

It seemed appropriate that March of that year saw the start of the ill-starred siege of Khartoum in the Sudan, which would end in the brutal death of General Charles Gordon at the hands of the Mahdi rebels some ten months later. Like the botched attempts to relieve him, which eventually earned our prime minister Gladstone the moniker of 'Gordon's Only Murderer', I felt that my life was just a mess. 

That spring brought an important development in my career, as it saw the retirement of one of the surgery's elder doctors (his colleagues had been dropping hints for over five years, apparently, until one day his wife simply informed him either he was leaving the practice, or she was leaving him!). I thus obtained a full-time position there five days a week, and although I had been working almost every day beforehand, the certainty of full-time employment was welcome. Besides, working longer hours meant I had less time to mope around Baker Street and stare at empty chairs or unfortunate head wear. I was approached by representatives of two other surgeries at this time with generous offers to join them, but I refused, partly because I believed I owed my first employer a degree of loyalty, and partly because I was slightly suspicious that my slight literary fame might be their real reason for asking. I was content where I was, even if I always felt a slight chill coming home each evening to a Holmes-less apartment.

Holmes' birthday passed on a Thursday that year, and I was ridiculously reminded of his middle name being that of the Angel of Thursday. If I started getting depressed every seven days, I would just give up!

I had not even thought of seeking out social company with Holmes gone, but a few days before All Saints' Day, I chanced to meet Miss Lisa Braeden at a surgery function. She was the niece and carer to one of my elderly patients, an eternally grumpy old man called Mr. Silas Merton, who lived in an absurdly large house in Deptford. She and I saw each other as friends for some two months, then at a party where we both drank too much, we awoke the following morning in the same bed - _sans apparel_. I felt both dirty and ashamed, as if I had betrayed my friend in some way. I went home and had a long hot bath in the bath salts that Holmes had used to use, and that I now ordered regularly (it was not pathetic, whatever that small voice at the back of my mind said). I later found that Miss Braeden had also been seeing the son of an army colonel, and it was with mixed emotions that I learnt not long after that she had accepted his proposal of marriage, and had left London to live with him somewhere in the country. I little knew then just what trouble our short-lived liaison would later cause me.

That autumn was a cold one, enlivened only by the passing of the Representation of the People Act, or the Third Reform Act as it was more commonly known. It greatly extended and made uniform the franchise, although around forty per cent of all adult males (and of course all women) still did not have the vote. It was to be followed by another act the following year that would redistribute the seats more fairly, and for the first time would deny the old landed gentry a majority in parliament. I remember it because these laws were something that Holmes had remarked were long overdue, and that he had hoped to see them passed one day. He was just not around to see it all happen.

Yet, said a small voice inside me. It sounded like Hope.

**1885**

That January, I turned thirty-three years of age, a time when many of my generation were settling down with families. Although I did not particularly like children, I had always seen myself as eventually falling into a happily married existence, growing old together with my one true love. All right, so I was a closet romantic. There are worse crimes! Around this time I was treating a Mrs. Daley, and her daughter Aphrodite, some six years my junior, made it quite clear that she was interested in me. She was very beautiful, and I.... was very disinterested. She gave me a strange look when I said that I was not ready to settle down at this time, but I felt nothing for her.

I can only hope that my diagnostic abilities in my professional career exceeded those in my private life.

That summer I wrote up the Cardboard Box Adventure in an impressive four months. Both the “Strand” magazine and my publishers were eager for further adventures concerning the famous Mr. Sherlock Holmes, but I was reluctant. I enjoyed the money – of course - but there were only two stories left that I felt fit for publication, and I also felt that in sending those stories out into the world I would, perhaps foolishly, also be saying goodbye to my friend, or at least my hopes of his return. I did start work on The Yellow Face story, but warned both magazine and publishers that it would take some time before it was finished. I was also somewhat unnerved by the reactions of my more literate patients, who had begun chivvying me over my writings, although their comments were generally positive. 

There was a rare light-hearted moment that summer, courtesy of my friend Doctor Peter Greenwood. He had brought a cheap magazine into the surgery one day, and advised me to read “Cockswain”, one of the stories in it. I was put off by the poor quality print, but he was right; I did find the story quite interesting. It was basically a rehashed version of the “Gloria Scott” case - except with a lot of sex between the two main characters, Daniel and Charles. And Daniel – an English country doctor, apparently – was a complete bumbling idiot of the first order, emotionally constipated to boot, whilst Charles was a complete sex-maniac, whose motto seemed to be anytime, any place, anywhere! Peter laughed when he saw me later and told me that I had now achieved true fame, in that someone was prepared to go to the trouble of 'sexing up' my works. 

Sammy came down for a rare visit that September, and stayed for a long weekend that included Holmes' birthday – his thirty-first – so at least that distracted me. He was doing well on his course, and I had no wish to add to his concerns about a brother whose private life was apparently shot to pieces. He even asked if I would consider moving North to live with him. The prospect held no appeal for me at all; I wanted to remain here, in case.... well, just in case.

One particular incident close to the end of that year comes to mind. I was generally away from Baker Street from dawn till dusk, but on that particular December day I chanced to attend a lady who had collapsed on Baker Street Station, and decided to go home for a much-needed hot drink. Walking back to the house, I asked Mrs. Harvelle for a coffee, and waited to take it up myself. On arriving in my room however, I nearly dropped it right there onto the rug (that would have had Mrs. Harvelle reaching for her rifle, most likely)! Someone had been through Holmes' papers, and his bedroom door was slightly ajar!

Taking out my revolver, I burst into his bedroom, and found.... nothing. I quickly hurried down to see our landlady, who told me that the insufferable Mr. Bacchus Holmes had called earlier that day, and asked to spend some time in his brother's room, and that he had had someone with him who she had not closely seen (very unlike her, I thought, perhaps a little uncharitably). As the man's father was still paying for Holmes' half of the rent I could not really object, but I did not like it. Something was up. But did it also mean that the chances of the scruffy genius returning had improved?

Just days later, Mrs. Thompson's now seasonal telegraph arrived, and reading between the lines, I sensed that whatever family drama had taken Holmes from me was coming to a resolution. I was reminded of the old saw that it is the hope that finishes one off?

**1886**

I saw in 'Eighty-Six trying not to dwell on that hope, and on my thirty-fourth birthday I went to sleep whilst hugging a certain woolly hat. I was probably pathetic, but I did not care.

That winter was a bitter one, I recall, and there were two days of rioting by the unemployed in the West End of London, of all places. The city was also on edge over the debate on Irish Home Rule, which Gladstone, prime minister again after the brief tenure of the Marquess of Salisbury, had announced that he would now support. I also remember Mrs. Bowles berating me for not keeping her father alive through it, despite the man being ninety-one at his death, a prodigious age for those times (if I had had her for a daughter, Heaven would have seemed doubly attractive!). I recall it because it happened on March the twelfth, three years to the day after I had lost my dear friend.

Who, had I but known it, I was tantalizingly close to regaining.

+~+~+

Next, the return......


End file.
